Albert Fish , Child Killer

on todays episode i will be going through the horrific alert fish case , which is not for the faint of heart 

previously relesed in two parts , now redited and compiled for this extra long episode

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just a word of warning before today's episode starts. Is
not for the fames of heart and definitely not for
children's ears. Today's episode is focused on a serial killer
who participated in child rape and cannibalism.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
If you were to look up the word evil in
the dictionary, you would find the following definition profoundly immoral
and wicked. But I believe I can give you the
ultimate definition of the word evil simply by providing you
with a name, Albert Fish. I'm going to presume for
a moment that you don't know anything about Albert Fish,

(00:45):
and if you were to google his name right now,
you would be forgiven if you thought his appearance was
that of a friendly old man, and that is possibly
why he got away with so.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Many atrocities over the years.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Even though Albert Fisher was eventually found guilty of murdering
three children, it is believed that he had over one
hundred victims in his time, and he actually said in
his own words that he had a child in every state.
Albert Fish was a gaunt looking man with a gray
mustache which blended in quite nicely with his gray looking complexion.
The serial killer, child rapist and Cannibal also came with

(01:18):
quite a collection of nicknames, the Gray Man, the Wowolf
of Wosteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the moon Maniac, and the Bogeyman. Now,
I wish I could say that Albert's depravities only started
later on in life, but unfortunately they didn't. They started
much earlier on. Let me take you back to the
year of eighteen seventy. It was a time of change

(01:41):
in America, which was still recovering from the Civil War
which ended only five years previous. It was the start
of the Second Industrial Revolution, and America was attempting to
get back on its feet. At this time in history,
the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, which gave the right to
vote to black males. Eighteen seventy was also the year
that the world said goodbye to Charles Dickens, who died

(02:03):
at the age of fifty eight and on May nineteenth,
eighteen seventy. Albert Fish was born in Washington.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
D c.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Now, although Albert Fish is the name we all know
him as now, it is not the name he was
given at birth. His birth name was actually Hamilton Fish.
His father was Randall Fish, who was seventy five years
of age at the time of his birth and was
forty three years older than his mother, ellen Fish. Albert
or Hamilton, as he was known at that point in
his life, was the youngest of the three siblings, Walter,

(02:33):
Annie and Edwin. By eighteen seventy five, his father died
of a heart attack, and his mother had no choice
but to place five year old Albert into an orphanage
until her situation bettered. Times were hard, especially back then,
and without her husband to help with the money, Ellen
Fish probably had no alternative. Unfortunately, it is possible that

(02:54):
placing him in this orphanage possibly molded him into the
monster he would later become. But it is also worth
mentioning that though was already evidence of mental health issues
in the family, one member of the family, his uncle,
I believe, suffered from religious mania, and his mother was
said to have suffered from hallucinations, and his brother was
also committed to a mental hospital. So it is unclear

(03:18):
if Albert's time in the orphanage did actually turn him
into the man he would later become, or whether it
was always there with him. But I have no doubt
that spending time in this orphanage certainly didn't help.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
As you were about to learn.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Whilst in the orphanage, young Albert was constantly picked on
by the other kids, and he was given the nickname
ham an Ex, which he hated. He absolutely hated it,
so much so that he decided he would take the
name of his dead brother Albert and discard the name
Hamilton for good. On many occasions, the staff would make
the children strip down to learn underware and stand in

(03:55):
a line, and then they were beaten and whipped and
often abused, possible sexually. Over time, Albert started to realize
that he was enjoying the beatings and would even get
erections which got him beaten even more from the staff
and especially from the other kids. Somewhere in his broken
mind something had flipped. The pain now turned him on enormously.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
He liked it.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
He enjoyed seeing the other children in pain. He enjoyed
being in pain. He enjoyed the whippings and the beatings,
and it had uncovered something very dark in Albert's soul.
If there was ever a soldier in the first place.
Later in life, when Fish was eventually captured, he would
say that this period in his life in the orphanage

(04:40):
was what got him started wrong. In eighteen seventy nine,
Ellen Fish was finally in a position to take her
now nine year old son, Albert back and look after him,
but unfortunately, by now the damage was already done. Once
Albert was free from the orphanage, he requested that his
mother legally change his name to Alban but which he did.

(05:01):
She actually told him it was like having her son
back from the dead, which, if you asked me, that
is quite a messed up thing to say to your
living child. As Albert got older, his sexual urges were
getting out of control. As a youth, he would constantly
visit the public bathrooms to watch young boys undress to
feed his desires. At the age of twelve, Fish had

(05:24):
a homosexual relationship with a telegraph boy who introduced him
to strange practices such as drinking his own urine and
eating his own feces. And as we will find out,
this discussing behavior will play a big part in his
later life. Now from here I must say it is
all going to go downhill, or should I say uphill?

(05:44):
Because this story is about to get a whole lot
harder to tell. In eighteen ninety Albert became a male prostitute,
selling his body to be used however the customer wanted.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
He had now.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Also started to act on his own sick passions, as
he called them, by raping young boys. When he turned nineteen,
he found work as a house decorator and would often
travel around to different areas of the country on the job,
and when he saw the opportune moment to abuse a child,
he did, and then he would simply disappear and move
on unnoticed. When Albert was captured, he would later claim

(06:18):
that it was all too easy. He would remain naked
underneath his overalls so he could remove them quickly abuse
a child, and then quickly pull them back over his
naked body and simply disappear. Albert also chose his victims well.
He claimed he would go for a child who wouldn't
present too much of a fight or trouble, perhaps a

(06:40):
child with learning disabilities, or a black child, because, as
he said, no one really cared about black children. We
must remember times were different, and back then people could
be even more ignorant and cruel when it came to
skin color as they can be today. When Albert turned
twenty eight, his mother a He's a marriage to a

(07:00):
nineteen year old woman named Anna Murray Hoffman, who was
nine years younger than Albert's and together they had six children.
But this wouldn't stop him from feeding his desires whenever
he could. Apparently, Albert adored his children and he dolted
on them, despite the monster that he was. It is
said that he was a very good father, but he
could at times act very strange in front of them,

(07:23):
and this we will come back to a little later.
In nineteen oh three, Albert was arrested for embezzlement and
locked up in Sinking Prison, where he had sexual relations
with many men. Upon release from Sinxing Prison, Albert's already
disturbing behavior had multiplied. Up to now, Albert's attacks had

(07:44):
been cruel, disgusting, and atrocious, to say the least, and
he took pleasure from inflicting pain and receiving pain. He
loved to hear the screams and the cries of his victims.
But he was about to take it one step further.
Albert Fish had always had a sick urge to torture, kill,
and eat his victims, and it was growing inside of him,

(08:05):
and every day he would come that little bit closer
to making it a reality. Now I have to warn you.
Everything I've told you up to now at this point
has been the tip of the iceberg. Going forward is
going to get a lot worse. So if you're faint
hearted or easily shocked, you may want to turn this
episode off. But if you have decided to stay with

(08:26):
me strapping, it's going to be a rough ride.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Now.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Although Albert was married, it did not stop him having
relationships with men whenever he could, and on one occasion
he visited a waxworks museum with one of his male friends.
It was here he witnessed the model of a dissected
human penis, and he became fascinated by it, and from
that day he became obsessed with genital mutilation and castration.

(08:55):
Whilst working on a particular job away from home, Albert
started a relationship of a nineteen year old intellectually disabled
man named Thomas Kenden. Albert noticed that Thomas Kennan was
someone that he could easily manipulate. What I'm about to
tell you is graphic, disturbing and disgusting. When Albert was

(09:15):
forty years old, he was out of town doing a
painting job in Wilmington, Delaware, and there he stayed on
the outskirts of the city. This is where Albert met
Thomas Kendon. He described him as a well built boy
of nineteen and had a pretty face like a girl,
and he would have passed as a sixteen year old
if he wasn't so big, and he appeared kind of silly.

(09:38):
What Albert meant is that Thomas Kenden had learning disabilities,
and this is what probably attracted Albert to him. He
could be easily manipulated, and Albert even omitted in his
own disgusting way that Thomas Kennan was as easy to
spank as a ten year old boy. According to Albert,
Thomas was in need of work and had traveled to

(10:00):
Wilmington looking for a job.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Apparently, on his.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Way he was repeatedly raped by hoboes whilst hitching a
ride in a train carriage. It's not clear if Albert
fabricated this in his sick mind or not. There was
no work for Thomas and he had no money. Albert
took Thomas for a warm meal and then took him
to his room. Not out of kindness, Albert had other intentions.

(10:27):
When Albert got him into the room, he noticed that
Thomas was crawling with lice. Thomas was apparently scratching like mad.
Albert made him strip and gathered up his lice infestive
clothing and threw them out, and then he ran a
warm bath and instructed Thomas to lie flat in the
tub until he returned from the drug store. Albert returned
with her remover and clippers. He removed Thomas's longhur and

(10:50):
then mixed up the her remover into a paste, smeared
all over his body, and when he was finished, Thomas
was completely hurless. And then, as Albert put it, the
fun began. In the statement that Albert fish made that
I read, he described the sex in graphic, disgusting detail,
and I'm not comfortable repeating it here. It was in

(11:12):
no means normal sex. So in short, they took the
turns of playing the role of a naughty boy and father,
and whoever was playing the father role would spank the
one playing the boy role. It is possible, I wasn't
under percent sure, but it's possible that they messed each
other's pants as well and then ate it. They described

(11:36):
body parts such as dicky, honeypot, and sugar ball, and
I'm going to leave it up to your own imagination
to figure out what those words were assigned to. All
this made it extra creepy whilst reading the way he
described certain things. This went on for ten days, and
Albert's sadistic cravings were beginning to get the better of him.

(11:58):
Albert I decided he now wanted to torture Thomas. He
wanted to hear him scream. He wanted to cut him.
He wanted to burn him and whip him. But he
couldn't do it where he was staying. There would be
too much noise. Too much noise would be made. So
Albert looked around for an abandoned building and eventually came

(12:19):
across an old farmhouse that was supposedly haunted and so
it remained empty. He found a room in the farmhouse
with a bed and a chair and a door with
a working lot, just perfect for the horrors he had
in mind. He brought Thomas to the house with a
blanket and a pot to go toilet in. He made

(12:39):
Thomas strip naked and then locked him in the room
and left him the other night. The next day, Albert
returned to the house and he brought with him a
sharp knife, alcohol, and a box of matches. Before Albert
ventured into the house, he filled a bucket with ice
cold water from the well outside for Thomas to drink,
but no food. You see, these were proper torture tactics.

(13:02):
Thomas was now a prisoner, and Albert wanted him weak.
For some strange reason, Albert still had Thomas's trust. Albert
tied Thomas up hands and feet, and then turned to
him and told him, I have you exactly where I
want you. And where Albert had him was exactly where
he would keep him. He then pushed Thomas over into

(13:23):
his stomach and the torture started. What I'm about to
tell you is not easy to listen to. Albert apparently
whipped him with fawny branches from a BlackBerry bush from outside,
and with every blow the thorns would stick into his
flesh and Albert would drag it through his skin, ripping
chunks of flesh from his behind. Thomas screamed. He screamed

(13:46):
so loud, and Albert loved it. He was in his
own little, deranged paradise. And remember they were in a
house in the middle of nowhere. Nobody could hear the screams.
Blood poured out of Thomas's behind, and Albert smacked it
with his bur hand, spraying blood all over the walls.
He then took his knife and slipped between the cheeks

(14:07):
on Thomas's behind, placed his lips to the wound, and
drank the blood and when he had finally finished. When
he was satisfied, he got up, He walked out of
the room, locked the door, and left for the night,
leaving Thomas naked, called and badly mutilated for the night,
but not dead. The next morning, Albert had no choice

(14:29):
but to go to his decorating job, but then later
on that evening he would return to the farmhouse, taking
with him candles to illuminate the room. This went on
for five more days, relentless torture by candlelight. In those
five or six days, Thomas had only been given water.
He had not been given any food, but on the

(14:50):
sixth day, Albert brought him a sandwich, but he wouldn't
allow Thomas to eat the sandwich until he had first
eaten his own feces. Then strapped his legs to the
head of the bed over his head, leaving him in
a very uncomfortable, vulnerable position. Albert then used the whole
pack of needles on Thomas's behind. He later said it

(15:12):
looked like a pincushion. He then stuck a needle through
the head of Thomas's penis all the way through, and
then he stuck it between his testicles and left him
like that, in that position, with his legs over his
head in that pain, needles still in his flesh overnight.
He returned the next day and removed the needles, and

(15:33):
he then poured peroxide.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
All over Thomas's wounds.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
As the blood poured out, his penis had turned a
dark blue. I don't know if you're noticeing, but I'm
really having a hard time reading this. He untied his feet,
and an exhausted Thomas just fell asleep right there and then.
But Albert wasn't happy with this, and he stuck a
needle in Thomas's belly to wake him up. He then

(15:59):
fed him a tablespoon of food, made him eat his
own feces once again, and continued with the whipping, the cutting,
and the burning. Now, according to Albert, and you never
can really take the word of a serial killer. But
according to Albert, after a short period of time, they
both started to enjoy eating each other's feces and drinking

(16:21):
each other's urine disgustingly. They called it peanut butter and cider.
The torture went on. It was quite repetitive, and I
don't really want to keep going over it. Human waste
was used in a lot more disgustingly graphic different ways,
and Albert allowed Thomas to punish him in the same

(16:42):
way as he punished Thomas. Soon Albert knew he would
have to return home. It had been five or six
weeks already. People are going to start wondering where he was. Strangely,
Thomas didn't want Albert to leave. He had strangely become
accustomed to the to And I think I have heard
of this happening in other cases where the person who's

(17:04):
been kept captive they distart to kind of bond with
the person who's keeping them captive. But what we have
got to remember is all this is coming from Albert's
own statements. No one actually knows what happened to Thomas
Kennen in the end, so we only have Albert's word
for this. Albert had a growing desire to kill Thomas
and eat him. He tied up Thomas, took a blade

(17:28):
and sliced off half of Thomas's penis, and Albert loved
to hear him scream. Blood was now gushing from Thomas's
penis like a fountain, and that Albert really wanted to
kill Thomas and sliced off cuts of meat and take
them home to eat. But the weather was very hot
that day, and he knew the smell would draw attention
on his journey back home. And it is also said

(17:49):
that the expression on Thomas's face when Albert cut off
his penis shocked him. It also thrilled him, but it
shocked him and it stopped him from killing him. So
he poured peroxide on the open wound and wrapped it
with vasiline and a handkerchief. He untied Thomas, gave him
his clothes ten dollars, and kissed him goodbye. No one

(18:12):
knows what became of Thomas Kenden. Now, at this point
Albert hadn't actually killed anyone yet, But like I said,
Albert did claim that he did use his job to
abuse so many children in so many different ways. And
as I was making him away through the book, Albert
fish in his own words, I read the statements he

(18:33):
gave and he reveals some of the times e Abu's children,
and it fills so many pages. It was either forced
upon them or repaid the children to perform six sexual
acts on him, and he on them. Albert boasted, like
I said before, that he had a child in every state.

(18:56):
And the torture also included whipping, beating, cutting, urination, and
even more god awful things. And whilst all this was
going on back home, it would seem that all was
not well with Albert's marriage. Surprise, surprise, a man named
John Strabe, who is often described as a dim witted handyman,

(19:16):
had been living with the Fish family. Unknown to Albert, Anna,
Albert's wife, had started a relationship with the handyman, and
one day, when Albert left town on a painting job,
Anna took the opportunity to leave Albert and run away
with the handyman. Coldly, she sent her own children to
watch a movie, and whilst her children were out of

(19:38):
the house, Anna and the handyman, John completely stripped the
house of everything, all of the furniture, and she left
her own children and left town with this man. So
when the children returned, they returned to a cold, empty
home abandoned by their own mother, the father still away

(19:58):
on work. They just governed some pennies in the bathtub
and a note instructing them to send a telegraph to
the father, who was painting a church out of town.
When Albert got word of this, he hurried home to
find everything gone. There was nothing, only his children. They
moved into their anti home for a short while, and
then Albert rented a room whilst completing his painting job.

(20:22):
Now I believe I read someone that Albert started to
see his furniture turning up in certain second hand stores,
but he is the thing. He couldn't afford to buy
the furniture back, so he rented a furnished apartment that
was a little more expensive but necessary. Fish was a disgusting,
horrible monstrosity, evil to the bone. But when it come
down to his children and his grandchildren that came later,

(20:45):
he was currying, loving and doting on them and never
faltered from his responsibilities. It's really hard to understand and
wrap your head around how the mind of this monster
really worked. When Albert his wife left home, it did
not have a good effect on his already disturbed state
of mind, and he slipped further into darkness. It's around

(21:09):
this time that Albert started having hallucinations and hearing voices
in his head. He would often see visions of Jesus Christ,
who would appear to him with instructions to offer a
child for sacrifice, to purge his own sins, or to
save the child from a future sin which will come

(21:29):
up later. It was also at this time that Albert
started to inflict harm upon himself. He would whip himself,
he would beat himself with a paddle, or more disturbingly,
he would ask his children to do it for him,
and when that wasn't enough, he actually stuck nails into
the paddle to inflict more pain by ripping chunks of
flesh from his skin. And then he started to introduce

(21:53):
needles into his self tortured routine. Albert would insert needles
really far into his scroll, the so far up that
he couldn't get them back out, and there they remained,
and if that wasn't enough, he even inserted them into
his penis. This was his sick, twisted way of getting

(22:13):
his sexual thrills, and his religious visions were possibly away
for his broken mind to accept what he was doing. Sometimes,
the visions and the voices would conveniently suit the situation.
Three months after Albert's wife and the children's mother ran away,
one of the elder daughters received a letter from her

(22:34):
claiming that the man she had ran away with had
started to beat and starve her, and she wanted to
return home. When the daughter told her father, Albert told
his daughter to tell.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Her mother to come home.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
All this forgiven, and that's what happened. Anna came home,
and strangely, Albert welcomed the back with open arms. One
week later, whilst Fish was away on a job, John
strabbed the handyman returned to Anna her to take him back,
and like most abusive relationships, she did, Only this time

(23:07):
she hid him in the attic of Albert's own house,
and that's.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Where he stayed for a while.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Unknown to Albert, she would sneak food up and give
him the family's best blankets. Albert had no idea about
the man in the attic, but he couldn't understand why
they were constantly running out of food. His wife tried
to blame the dog, but Albert he wasn't convinced. One day,
he noticed the dog starts up the stairs. Curious, Albert followed.

(23:34):
They both climbed the stairs to the top of the
house while the dog was sniffing at the attic door.
Albert opened the attic door and discovered John Straw, but
was fast asleep. He claimed he felt no anger whatsoever.
He actually found it humorous. He awoke him and told
him to come down. When they reached the kitchen, he

(23:54):
seated him at the table whilst Anna looked on in shock,
and then they ate dinner as Albert relished every second
of the uncomfortable situation. Later, when Albert insisted that Anna
leave the handyman, and this time for good, Anna refused,
and once again she left, and this time she didn't return.

(24:15):
They never divorced, but Anna would not be Albert's last wife.
Now I'm sure you can imagine what kind of effect
that would have had on a sane person's state of mind.
After his wife left for the second time, the self
harm and strange behavior intensified, and like I said before,

(24:35):
his children were starting to pick up On this one night,
one of Albert's daughters came downstairs for a drink, only
to find Albert rolled up in the living room carpet.
She could see the top of his head poking out.
It was like he was in a strange cocoon. But
his daughter had seen many a strange thing, and she
simply returned to bed. When she awoke in the morning,

(24:57):
she went downstairs just in time to see him on himself.
He had slept rolled up in that carpet all night,
apparently following instructions from John the Apostle. Other strange behavior followed.
Fish had started to force tissue paper or wood soaked
in lighter fuel up his anus and light it on fire,

(25:18):
burning himself from the inside. Albert's fascination with cannibalism was
also growing, and to try and quench these desires, he
started serving raw meat at dinner, even to his children,
and they were encouraged to eat it. At around nineteen nineteen,
Albert started to stab random children. He would single, like

(25:38):
children who had intellectual disabilities or African American children who
we believed no one would miss. Like I said before,
it's also believed that Albert paid other kids to bring
unsuspecting victims to him, and according to Albert, his victims
reached into the hundreds, but there's no hard evidence of this.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Like I also said before, you.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
See here's what I believe that serial killers even want
to confess all and soak up as much attention and
fame as they can, even going as far as to
lie about certain things. And it's hard to separate fact
from fiction most of the time. By nineteen twenty four,
Albert had his eye on an eight year old little
girl named Beatrice Keel. He had noticed the little girl

(26:22):
playing on the farmland where she lived. He watched her
from afar, I imagine, from the bushes. Luckily, her mother
noticed Albert skulking around the little girl and moved him along.
Now this bit really creeps me out. It goes to
show how desperate and sick Albert Fish actually was.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
He actually returned.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
That night and slept in the family's barn, and luckily,
the little girl's father noticed him and chased him away.
This was a very lucky escape for the little girl,
who had vigilant parents. On another occasion, Fish successfully lowed
two young boys to his room, and he did this
by offering sandwiches. As they played in his room, they

(27:04):
accidentally discovered a bag of cutting tools, a knife, a
hand sow, and a cleaver. This scarred the children so
much that they fled the house. This was another lucky
escape for the children, but very frustrating for Albert, whose
sick desires were not being quenched. Unfortunately, the next child
wouldn't be so lucky, and sadly, the next child was

(27:27):
Francis McDonald. The little boy was horribly murdered at the
hands of Albert Fish, and it would be one of
the three confirmed murders that finally got Albert Fish in
the electature. Shortly after two pm on the fourteenth of
July nineteen twenty four, Missus McDonald sat on the porch
of her house, which was surrounded by about ten acres

(27:48):
of wilderness. Missus McDonald sat there watching her eight year
old son, who had been playing alone. Missus McDonald was
also cradling her one month old child in her arms.
As she sat there, she noticed a very very unkept man,
an elderly man with a gray mustache and gray stubble
which sat upon a very gaunt, bony face. The old
man was making his way past the house, and missus

(28:10):
McDonald couldn't help but notice the way he fiddled with
his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists as he mumbled
nonsense to himself. As he passed by the house. The
next door neighbour's two German shepherd dogs started barking and
howling at the old man, and this got me thinking
maybe dogs can sense evil. As the old mangered a
little bit further down the road, he stopped, slowly, turned

(28:32):
and gave missus McDonald an ice cold stir. He then
tipped his hat and carried on down the road. Later
that afternoon, Missus McDonald went back into the house, leaving
her son, Francis, and his brother playing with other kids
on the street. The children were playing catch with a
rubb ball when all of a sudden, the shabby looking
old man reappeared and called over to little Francis as

(28:53):
the other kids continued to play. After a few minutes,
the children noticed that Francis had totally disappeared. A neighbor
named George Stern saw eight year old Francis and the
old man enter a grassy pathway which led to a brook.
George didn't think much of this, children always played in
the woodland area. He was slightly suspicious of the gray
looking old man, but not enough to raise the alarm.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
I think back in nineteen twenty.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Four people were just more trusting unless it were of
how evil people could actually be. George was the last
person to see Francis alive, well.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Apart from Albert Fish.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
When Francis failed to return, his father, Arthur MacDonald, who
just so happened to be a police officer, questioned his
son's friends, who told him about the gray old man
who called Francis over to him. Mister McDonald searched until
night and found nothing. The next day a massive search.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Was under way.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Police were involved, neighbours, friends, even the boy Scouts all
helped them. At donald family, it was actually free of
the boy Scouts that found eight year old Francis. They
literally nearly fell over him. His corpse lay hidden on
the branches and leaves in the dirt. The little boy's
clothing from the waist down had been viciously torn from

(30:09):
his body. He had been severely assaulted and strangled with
his own suspenders, which were tied around the little boy's throat.
They were tied so tightly it looked as if they
were fused with his own skin. So many suspects were interviewed,
escaped convicts, a truck driver, and even a music teacher,

(30:30):
but all were found innocent. The autopsy of young Francis
found that he had undigestive raisins in the stomach. This
was probably what Albert Fish used to load the little
boy into the woods. And now we all know that
Albert Fish murdered little Albert Francis, But at the time
they didn't know this, and the little boy's body was

(30:50):
so badly beaten that they suggested that the killer was
not actually an old man. They actually thought that it
was someone much stronger than an old man. And there
was a strong possibility that there was actually two killers,
not one. How wrong could they be? But his mother,
Missus McDonell, was certain the killer was the old gray

(31:12):
man who tipped his hat. On the day of the funeral,
the little boy lay in an open coffin. Makeup had
been thickly applied to cover up its battered face. There
was hope that the killer would come to the funeral,
but no suspicious old men turned up. Days turned into months,
months into years, and the killer seemed to have escaped

(31:34):
justice for now. But he's something that you might find
interesting about. A week earlier, a seventeen year old girl
was walking through the woods alone when she noticed an
old gentleman.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
He was scruffy looking.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
He had gray hair and a gray beard, wearing blue
trousers and a soiled white shirt. He was crouched over
in the long grass, and he seemed to be eating
something out of his hands. Now, if it was Albert Fish,
I like to think that he had raw meat in
his hand.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
At least that's the image I have in my head.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
The girl said, whatever it was he was eating, he
was grasping it in both hands, and she said he
looked like a wild animal. As she got closer, the
man's gaze shot in her direction, and he shouted out
to her, which she said sounded Italian, and then he
gave chase. Terrified, she turned and ran through the woods,
followed by the crazed old gray man. Eventually he gave

(32:27):
up and disappeared into the woods. This wasn't the only
story that came out after Francis was viciously killed. The
police were swamped with support sightings of the killer. This
one held a little bit more credence because of the description.
I'd bet my right arm that Albert Fish had more
victims over the next few years. We know for certain

(32:50):
he was responsible for the murder of Billy Gaffney. Now
we jumped to nineteen twenty seven in Brooklyn, four year
old Billy Gaffney was playing just outside his run down
family apartment in the gloom of the hallway. He was
playing with his three year old friend, Billy Beaton, who
was a neighbor in the apartments. A twelve year old

(33:11):
boy named Johnny Moniff also joined them. In the dim hallway,
Johnny was looking after his baby's sister.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Who was asleep on the upper floor.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
It wasn't long before his infant sister began to cry,
so Johnny had to return upstairs to the room to
tend to her, leaving four year old Billy Gaffney and
three year old Billy Beaton playing alone for a while.
Johnny later claimed he was only gone three minutes or so.
When he returned, the little boys had both disappeared. The
father of three year old Billy Beaton came out of

(33:40):
his apartment looking for his son. Johnny explained that they
were both here only three minutes ago, and with that
a frantic search commenced. Mister Beeton rushed outside to the street,
calling the young boys' names. When he realized they weren't outside,
he went knocking on doors, including Billy Gaffney's apartment, but
still no luck.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
He was now starting to panic.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
They raced from floor to floor with desperation and fear,
and then mister Beeton found his son, safe and sound.
He was on the top floor, stood outside a ladder
that led to the roof of the apartments. Now, I
like to imagine the amount of relief that must have
washed over mister Beaton as he pulled his child towards
him and give him a really big hug. And then

(34:23):
when he come to his senses, he would finally ask
where he had been. Mister Beeton listened as his son
explained that him and Billy Gaffney had been on the
roof looking at rooftops and boats in the river. He
was so relieved to find his son that momentarily he
had forgotten all about Billy Gaffney, the four year old boy.
Mister Beaton asked his son, is Billy still on the roof.

(34:45):
His son simply shook his head. Mister Beeton asked one
more question, where is he? Then his three year old
son looked up into his eyes and simply said, the
boogey Man took him at the time Billy Gaffney was
taken by Albert Fish, his mother sat at the kitchen table,
saw when Billy's tattered old gray knickers, which I thought

(35:05):
were under were, But apparently back then nickers a word
used to describe knee length trousers. Now Billy only on
two purs.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
He was wearing his.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
Blue pert when he was taken, with black stockings and
black shoes, but no hat or coat, and it was
chilly outside. A kidnapping just made no sense. The Gaffney family.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Were poor, They were very poor.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Mister Gaffney was a truck driver and he earned very little,
so taking a child and holding him to ransom didn't
quite fit.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
The main freery was.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
That Billy had wandered off into the streets and gotten
himself into a bit of bother. Maybe he had gone
to explore an empty building or become trapped. Maybe he
had fallen into a nearby canal. The idea that Billy
had been aducted wasn't really one that the police were
concentrating on, and young Billy Beaton's claimed that the boggy
man had took him had failed to convince the surgeon

(35:56):
in charge.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
The sergeant in charge just simply.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Thought that it was a product of an over active
young imagination. The hunt for the Gaffney Boy was intense.
Over three hundred and fifty policemen, not including neighbors and
members of the public joined in the search. Now, in
a very cruel twist, a constant flow of cruel letters
were received by the parents of Billy Gaffney. These letters

(36:21):
ranged from sympathy to cruel descriptions as to what had
happened to the son. Some stated he had been killed,
some stated that he was now living with a new family,
and other letters claimed Billy was being experimented on and
they would be coming back for the beaten boy. And
as bad as all that is, I find this disgusted.
Some people actually sent drawn out maps through the post

(36:43):
so that the Gaffney family could follow this map and
find the son's corpse, But of course there was no corpse.
This map was a wild goose chase.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
It was just another hoax.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Now, every one of these fake letters had seriously him
the investigation, but in all honesty, they didn't really have
anything to go on anyway. Everyone became a suspect. Family members,
even Billy's own father, became a suspect, and this is
partly due to the desperation of Billy's mother, who had

(37:16):
now become that desperate that she had started accusing everybody
of taking a son, even his own father. If a
lost child was found, the Gaffneys would rush down to
the station, only to find it wasn't Billy. If a
dead child was found, they would be asked to identify
the body, but it would never be Billy. He had

(37:38):
simply vanished into thin earth. But there was one solid lead,
even though it took a few years for everyone to
realize it. A trolley car conductor named Anthony Barron came forward,
claiming on the day of Billy's abduction, around seven pm,
an elderly man with a gray mustache boarded his trolley

(37:59):
car just two blocks away from the Gaffney apartment. The
old man was pulling a little boy on board with him.
The boy was wearing blue nickers and a gray blouse.
It was bitterly cold, but the boy had no coat
and no hat, and tears ran down the child's face.
The conductor claimed that during the journey, the young child

(38:21):
cried constantly, whilst a nervous, fidgety old man tried in
vain to calm him, even wrapping him in his dirty
long coat. As the nervous old man got off the
car with the crying child, he asked the driver if
it was possible to get to a ferry to Staten Island.
The driver gave him directions, and then the old man
went on his way, completely ignoring what the driver had said.

(38:44):
The last thing the driver saw was the old man,
half dragging, half carrying the frightened little boy, who cried
constantly down the street until the shadows of the night
covered them up. The media took this and ran with it,
turning it into entertainment.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Followed this exciting case, etc. Etc.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Paranoia had now increased in the community tenfold. This caused
angry mobs to form and they would attack any suspicious
man in the streets who even spoke or looked at
a child in a funny way. Eventually, though, the case
did go cold and in desperation, the police even listened
to psychic mediums, which obviously led nowhere, and eventually the

(39:26):
case came to a slow, dying crawl. But it wouldn't
be long before the horrific truth would be revealed.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
When Albert Fish was captured. But before I.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Tell you exactly what happened to Billy Gaffney when Albert
Fish took him. First of all, I need to tell
you about a murder that Albert committed that was a
little out of character, and it would be this murder
that would get Albert Fish caught, the murder of Grace Bud. Now,
like I said, Albert's next victim would be ten year
old Grace Bud, but she wasn't actually his first choice.

(40:00):
We see, Albert Fish found the Bud family due to
an advertisement and placed in the newspaper by Edward Budd,
Grace Bud's older brother. Besides Grace and Edward, Mister and
Missus Budd had three other children, Albert, George, and baby Beatrice.
Just like the Gaffney family, the Bud family were not
necessarily well off financially. They all lived in an apartment at

(40:22):
the rear of four or six Westreet at the edge
of Manhattan's Chelsea district. On this particular day where the
story takes place, it was a hot day in May
and it was stuffy and uncomfortable inside the apartment. But
to be honest, Edward Budd preferred to be outside. He
had a small job as a truck driver, but he
was desperate for a job which was situated in the country,

(40:44):
maybe some good, honest, hard work, And so he put
out the following ad, young man eighteen wish's position in country,
Edward Budd, four or six West fifteenth Street, on Sunday.
The advert was printed in the New York World Paper, the.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Same paper that Albert Fish.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Liked to read for disturbing reasons that we will get
into a little later.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
On this occasion, Albert Fish was looking.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
For a new victim, and Edward's ad had caught his eye.
The very next day, at three thirty pm, Albert Fish
knocked on the door of the Bud's residence. Missus Budd
answered the door to be greeted by Albert Fish, going
by the name of Frank Howard. Missus Budd later recalled,
how we looked very smart at first glance. He looked

(41:29):
very well dressed, and he was very well mannered. But
upon close inspection his respectful clothing was actually worn and
tattered and fraying around the wrists, and the knees of
his trousers.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Were nearly worn through. But all in.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
All, she decided that he looked respectful enough. Albert or
should I say Frank Howard, informed her he was answering
Edward's ad for work, and Missus Budd invited him inside,
and he painted this elaborate story that he owned a farm.
He made up a fake story that had some elements
of truth in it. He told them he was a
painter who purchased a farm when his eyesight failed him.

(42:08):
His wife didn't like life on the farm, so she
left him, leaving him alone with six children. He claimed
to have over three hundred chickens and half a dozen cows,
and he needed more staff. We know Albert Fish never
had a farm.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
He, like more.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Serial killers, was very good at fabricating nonsense and lying
just come second nature. Missus Budd called her youngest daughter
to go and fetch Edward, who was at his friend's house.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
The little girl, who was five years old.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Ran towards the door, but Albert couldn't resist reaching out
for her with his cruel old hands and pulling her
towards him. He told her she reminded him of his
youngest daughter, and he asked her a name, and she
simply answered Beatrice. He then placed a nickel in her hand,
It wasn't long before Edward and his friends arrived, and Albert,
if anything, was a little bit disappointed. Edward was a

(42:57):
big lad, and Albert wasn't sure if he could over
power him if needed. But his sick perversion got the
better of him and he went on with the non
existent job offer right there, and then he offered Edward,
along with his friend, a job that simply didn't exist.
He then rose to his feet and told them to
be ready the upcoming Saturday and he would arrive and
take them to the fictional farm. For unknown reasons, Albert

(43:19):
didn't return on the Saturday, but he did on the Sunday.
He did send a telegram explaining that he had been
postponed due to buying horses, another lie that he had
fabricated out of thin eer. To make his lies more believable.
On the way to the Bud residence, he purchased a
pail of cheese and a box of big red strawberries.
I think this was to build up a veil of illusion,

(43:40):
fooling mister and missus Budd that the cheese and the
strawberries were from his farm.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
All of this was Albert's plan, a way.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Of convincing them bit by bit that he was a kind,
trustworthy old man. There is one thing I forgot to mention.
On his way to the bud residence, Albert did stop
off at a news stand and he asked the newspaper
seller to look after that a canvas covered parcel, and
he told the newspaper sealer that he would return shortly
for it. So back at the Bud house, whilst Albert

(44:07):
waited for Edward to return, he engaged in conversation with
mister Budd, greatly building on his already established fake life.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
As a farm owner.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
The Buds invited Albert to stay for lunch, and the
Monster accepted. Albert once again apologized for being a day late.
Then he asked mister Budd if he still had the
telegram message. Mister Budd pointed to the mantle where the
message lay. Albert hobbled over, took the message and placed
it in his pocket. Mister Budd thought this was odd,

(44:36):
but quickly dismissed it as he sat down for dinner,
now joined by Edward and his friend, and then Missus
Budd's ten year old daughter entered the room. Grace Budd.
Up to this point this was the first time Albert
Fish had ever lady's evil eyes upon Grace, and instantly
he was entranced. Apparently, Grace was a delightful pretty girl
who dressed and acted older than her age, but a young,

(44:58):
appy innocence still shined through in Albert's sick and twisted mind.
He would have seen something else that the same mind
can't comprehend right there, and then he had decided it
was Grace he had been sent to inflict his sadistic
ways upon Edward and his friends no longer held his interest.
He invited Grace to come and sit on his knee,

(45:18):
and he grabbed a by the waist and dragged her
to his lap and complimented her whilst reaching into the
depths of his dirty pockets to grab a roll of
bills and mounted to ninety two dollars and fifty cents.
He placed the money onto the table and asked her
to count it, and then when she did so and
got it correct, he placed into a palm fifty cents and.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Told us to go and buy some sweets.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Now, ninety two dollars and fifty cents in those days
was a hell of a lot of money, and I
feel he pulled this load of money out purely to
get a reaction off Grace's parents, who were poor. Mister
and Missus Bud didn't have much money, so to see
this amount of money, I believe in a way, he
was kind of person perswading them to trust him by

(46:03):
showing them the money, by showing them he could pay
for their son to have a job, adding another layer
of trust, if you know what I mean. And you
know what really turns my stomach about this part, apart
from the obvious, is that in the book Albert Fishing
is on words whilst he was being interviewed by police officers,
he did say that if a child was to sit

(46:23):
on his knee for longer than a couple of minutes,
he would ejaculate in his pants. This guy really was
an infestation upon the human race. Right away, Albert Fish
knew that he needed to come up with a way
to convince the Buds to allow their daughter to leave
with him. Now, at this point, Albert Fish had already

(46:45):
convinced the Buds that he was a friendly, polite old
man with money, and he was offering work to the sun,
so how.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
Could they refuse.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
He told the Buds that he couldn't take Edward today
as he needed to attend his niece's birthday party. And
then he said suggested that mister and missus Budd allow
him to take Grace with him. There would be lots
of children her age to play with and games and cake.
Grace's mother was unsure, but her father insisted she go.

(47:13):
He said that she never went out, she never went
and had fun and it would be good for her.
Albert agreed to have her back by nine pm, and
with that, Albert and Grace left. Grace was dressed in
a Sunday best. They walked down the street hand in
hand and rounded the corner. That would be the last
time that mister and missus Budd would ever see the

(47:34):
daughter again.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
On the way to the train.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Station, Albert and Grace passed a new stand and Albert
stopped and picked up his package he left her earlier.
Inside was a saw, a knife, and a cleaver. That night,
nine pm came and went, and Grace and mister Howard,
I should say Albert Fish hadn't returned, and as the
days passed, it was becoming clear that Grace had been kidnapped.

(47:58):
But like the Gaffney family, the Boods had little to
know money, and just like the Gaffney family, as soon
as the media started printing the story, the Buds started
to receive the awful letters sent by cruel individuals. Sightings
of Albert and Grace flooded in and they all amounted
to nothing. There were also rumors of a kidnapping ring

(48:18):
that was circulating in the area, which actually may have
had some truth in it, but it had nothing to
do with.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Albert and Grace.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
It also came to like that Albert had giving them
addressed to the party he was attending that didn't exist,
and the name mister Howard actually belonged to a real
farmer who died years before. The police followed as many
leads as they could, but just like the Gaffney case,
the Grace Bud case went cold and eventually died down.
It seemed no one would know the fate of young

(48:49):
Billy or Grace, that is until the Bud family received
a letter a whole six years later. And this letter
happened to have information in it that actually meant something
to mister and missus Budd, and it made them suspect
that this may be from the man who took grace,
and it was Now I'm going to read to you

(49:11):
the letter. This is exactly what the letter said in
his own words. This letter is not pleasant to listen to,
and believe me, it's not pleasant to read. I may
decide to change the sound of my voice for this
next bit, not to create a creepy atmosphere, but simply
I'm not comfortable reading this letter and having other people
hear it in my voice.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
I hope that makes sense here.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
It is my dear missus budd. In eighteen ninety four,
a friend of mine shipped as a deckhand on the
steamer Tacoma Captain John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco
to Hong Kong, China. On arriving there, he and twoulders
went a shot and got drunk. When they returned, the
boat was gone. At that time, there was a famine
in China. Meat of any kind was from one dollar

(49:56):
to three dollars a pound. So great was the suffering
them on the very poor, or that all the children
under twelve were sold for food in order to keep
others from starving. A boy or girl under fourteen was
not safe in the street. You could go in any
shop and ask the steak, chops, or stew meat. Part
of the naked body of a boy or girl would
be brought out, and just what you wanted cut from it.

(50:18):
A boy or girls behind, which is the sweetest part
of the body, was sold as veal cutlet brought the
highest price. John stayed there so long he acquired a
taste for human flesh. On his return to New York,
he stole two boys, one seven, one eleven, took them
to his home, stripped them naked, tied them in a closet,
and burned everything they had on several times every day

(50:41):
and night, he spanked them, tortured them to make them
meat good and tender. First, he killed the eleven year
old boy because he had the fattest ass and of
course the most meat on it. Every part of his
body was cooked and eaten, except the head, bones and
the guts. He was roasted in the oven. All of
his ass boiled, broiled, fried, and stewed. The little boy

(51:02):
was next. Went the same way. At the time, I
was living at four or nine e one hundred Street
near right side. He told me so often how good
human flesh was. I made up my mind to taste it.
On June the third, nineteen twenty eight. I called on
you at four or six West fifteenth Street and brought
you pot, cheese and strawberries weird lunch. Grace sat on

(51:22):
my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind
to eat her on the pretense of taking her to
a party. You said yes, she could go. I took
her to an empty house in Westchester I had already
picked out. When we got there, I told her to
remain outside. She picked will flowers. I went up stairs
and stripped all of my clothes off. I knew if
I did not, I would get her blood on them.

(51:45):
When all was ready, I went to the window and
called her. Then I hid in a closet until she
was in the room. When she saw me all naked,
she began to cry and try to run down the stairs.
I grabbed her, and she said she would tell her mamma.
First I shook to naked, did kick, bite, and scratch.
I choked her to death, then cut her into small
pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms,

(52:07):
cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little
ass was roasted in the oven. It took me nine
days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her,
though I could of had. I wished she died of virgin.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Okay, I'll tell you I've read that letter a few
times whilst researching this episode, and it never gets easier
to read. It is truly evil. The Buds became convinced
that this letter was from the same man who visited
them six years ago. The police examined the letter and
they actually found a few clues.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Upon the letter.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
There were printed words that had been crudely scribbled out,
so it was unreadable, well, it was almost unreadable. Upon
further examination by the police, they discovered that the words
printed at the top of the letter read the New
York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
They now had a lead, and so.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
They paid a visit to this company and they interviewed
all the staff and they checked their handwriting to see
if it matched this letter.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
But unfortunately, once again they hit a dead end.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
How to frustration, they gathered all the stuff around and
basically they just showed everyone the letter and they said,
we believe this is from a kidnapper who may have
taken a little girl six years ago.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
We have no leads.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Is there anything you can tell us about this letter
that you may think would be useful to us, no
matter how small it may seem. And that is when
the janitor came forward, who claimed that he had taken
some of the paper that belonged to the company and
taken it back to a rooming house where he had
been staying in. But then he told the police that
he'd recently moved away from the rooming house, but he

(53:46):
may have left some of the notepaper behind. And so
the police paid a visit to the rooming house and
inquired about the janitor's old room. The man occupying that
room fit the profile of the man who took Grace Bud.
The problem was he had left days before. For a
brief moment, it would seem that they had hit another
dead end. But luckily the old man was due to

(54:09):
return to collect a check sent by his son. You see,
the landlady had been cashing them for him, and every
now and again he would return to pick up the money.
And so the police put the rooming house on the
full surveillance and they stayed there for weeks, but unfortunately
Albert didn't return when he said he would. They couldn't
keep the surveillance going, so they simply told the landlady

(54:29):
if he returns, please callers immediately, and eventually Albert did return,
and the landlady rang the police and then somehow kept
Albert busy.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
Until they arrived.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
It didn't take long, as he had investigator arrived and
into the room where Albert was being kept. Albert turned
to see the man, and the man simply inquired Albert fish.
Alarm bells went off in Albert's head, and he produced
a razor blade and made a pathetic attempt to harm
the officer. The officer quickly restrained him and then simply said,
I have you now. When the police got Albert back

(55:02):
to the station, he started to confess everything. Right now,
we're going to go back in time a little bit.
In between Albert murdering grace Bud and writing that horrendous letter,
Albert had slipped even further into his insanity. The voices
were constant. He woke in the night after having nightmares
of grace Bud's corpse rising up from the ground and

(55:22):
coming towards him, crying for a mum. In nineteen thirty four,
Albert's son, who was also named Albert, moved back in with.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
His sixty four year old father.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
He had always known his father at a strange side,
all of Albert's children did, but Albert Junior was about
to realize how strange his father actually was. One day,
when Albert Junior returned home, his curiosity was caught by
the sound of foods and smacks and grunts coming from
his very own bedroom. As Albert Junior appeared through the

(55:51):
crack in the door, there stood his sixty four year
old father, completely naked, in the center of his room,
stroking his red penis whilst beating himself with a wooden
pass covered in nails. Years before, Albert Junior had discovered
these paddles hidden underneath the sink, covered in dried up blood,
and now he was seeing his father use these paddles,
hitting his backside, ripping.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
The flesh away from his body.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Albert would later confront his father. Embarrassed, Albert admitted he
uses the paddles to subdue certain dark thoughts that he had.
When Albert Junior was younger, he'd also witnessed his father
standing atop a hill, his right arm stretched to the sky, screaming,
I am Christ. Also, in between the kidnapping of Grace
Bud and his capture. Albert had also started to write

(56:35):
obscene letters to certain women. It aroused him to think
how disturbed they would be reading his sick letters. One
disturbing letter he sent to an honor of a boarding
school led to his arrest. The police searched his room
to find his own personal torture tools that he used
on himself. These included a cat in nine tails, a carrot,

(56:56):
and a frankfurter. And what he did with these, I'll
leave up to your imagination. And because of these letters
and various other things that Albert was also placed into
Bellevue and certain other mental health hospitals, and he.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
Was always released.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
The verdict was that he was quiet, cooperative and orientated
and sold they let him go.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
The obscene letters continued.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
And he was searched the papers for ads from women
looking for work. Albert would then write back to these
women who were looking for work with a fabricated story.
He even invented a fake son who was named Bobby.
He had had an accident and couldn't look after himself.
He would request in the letters that the women spank
his fictional son, and over time he started to request

(57:43):
that he'd be spanked as well if they were to
take the job. Now, I'm not going to read any
of these letters out, but they are widely available all
over the internet. There's basically just too many of them.
He was very sick individual. He sent these letters to
so many different women. They're out there in the abundance.
They are not pleasant to read. They are clearly from

(58:04):
a very deranged, sick mind. And shockingly, some of these
women actually responded, probably desperate for the work. But on
one occasion when Albert went to meet one of the women,
they would refuse to take the job when they actually
met him and saw how strange he actually was in
real life. At another time, Albert was actually evicted for

(58:24):
sending one of these disgusting letters to his own landlady.
After she kicked him out, she noticed that he had
left us something on the floor in the apartment, something
you would normally deposit into a toilet.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Albert also wrote to.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Women requesting the hand in marriage, and this actually paid
off three times. His offer was accepted off women who
were probably desperate for money. His marriage to Sella Wilcox
only lasted one week when she noticed that he was
deeply disturbed. Other wives claimed that apparently he would play
disturbing games with their own kids, involving him dressed in

(59:00):
nothing but shorts, whilst the kid hung down his back
as he instructed them to scratch his back as hard
as they could. None of these women stayed around too long,
as you can imagine, but now, due to his sick
hobby of sending vio letters, they'd finally caught him and
he was telling them everything. He confessed to the murder

(59:21):
of Grace Bud. He claimed he had heard voices in
his head ordering to kill Grace to save her from
hardship when she grew older and would surely be raped
and abused.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
All of this was insane, but not to Albert.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
He had become convinced that these voices were telling him
that he was doing her a favor by raping and
killing her because later and in life, she would grow
up to be basically a whore in his words, and
only get murdered eventually. Anyway, it's completely messed up the
way his mind worked, but I'm trying to explain it

(59:56):
the best I can. Albert told the police that he
took Grace to the old empty farmhouse, where he tortured
Thomas Kenden, which we covered in episode one. On the
way to the farmhouse on the train, Albert remembered that
when he and Grace left the train, Grace suddenly noticed
he hadn't picked up his package, the very same package
that she saw him collect from the news stand, so

(01:00:18):
she quickly jumped back on and retrieved it from the
train and handed the tools that would later be used
to cut her into pieces over to Albert. Albert claimed
that if the train had left a station with his
tools of death, Grace would have.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Been returned home safely.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
In a way, I feel the sick bastard was saying
that she sealed her own fate by going back on
the train and handing him over his knife, is sow
and his cleaver. Albert actually took the police to the
farmhouse and showed them the spot to where he disposed
of Grace's body, which he simply threw over the outside wall.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Of the house.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Albert also gave a slightly alternative description to what happened
to Grace. The letter he sent to the mother and
father wasn't wasn't, but the confession was possibly worse. Once again,
I'm going to give you another warning that this isn't
going to be pleasant to listen to.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
The police at the tombs. I asked if I drunk
the girl's blood. I denied it and said it was
all bunk. But it was true. I drank about one
or two swallows, good swallows, and swallowed some, but I
spat out most. It tasted sickening, nauseating. If I drunk anymore,
I would have vomited. I had that feeling. I cut

(01:01:29):
off all the flesh around her breast, just the beginning
of the breast she had where a teat was, and
the flesh off her belly and legs, and all the
meat I could get off her behind. I took it on.
I cooked it over the gas stove, broiled it. I
ate hold of it, every bit of it, not all
at once. It tastes to me like veal. I had
other things with it, onions, carrots, and gravy. I got

(01:01:52):
a hard one when I ate it. I masturbated, sometimes
several times a night during the day I ate it.
I always had a desire to heat humanful ever since
I was told of cannibalism by my brother the sailor,
when I was a boy. He was in China, and
in Fiji Islands. I intended to violate her. I took
my clothes off. I told them so I wouldn't get

(01:02:12):
blood on me. But that wasn't what I had in mind.
I was asked so many questions after I was arrested.
I couldn't get my mind together. She picked flowers. I
stripped in the other room. I went to the window
and called Grace. When she saw me naked, she screamed
and said I'll call mamma. I grabbed her by the
throat and almost carried her to the room and laid

(01:02:34):
her on the floor and attempted to violate her. She
kicked and struggled. I had a hard one. I wanted
to quiet her first. She was losing consciousness and said
kiss me, and played three or four times with my pecker.
I saw she suffered from my strangulation. I placed my
nee on her chest to squeeze the breath out of her,

(01:02:55):
to get her out of her misery. I intended to
violate her first and to beat her afterwards. She was
too far gone. She was practically gone right then. I
would have given every drop of blood to bring her
back to life. I intended to violate her first and
then switch her. I had some switches in her, in
her behind. I always had in mind only whipping where

(01:03:17):
I was whipped myself in the home. I didn't think
she would put up such a struggle. She was a
frail looking child. She gave me the surprise of my life.
I intended to take the boy to cut his pecker off,
split it open, and then whip him on his behind.
They asked if I didn't think it was a fatal affair.
I said that would be a fatal affair. I intended

(01:03:38):
to whip him until he bled. I would have left
the boy in the house, tied up, and gone back
to my room, packed up my things and left town.
I had another vision in the jail about a week
after I got here. I woke up with a start.
The guard had just passed. At two a m. I
saw the same vision, a brother reaching in the same
way with a pistol in his hand. I jumped up
with a start and yelled and asked pat if there

(01:04:01):
was anybody in the next cell. I knew the cells
were empty. I drank the blood when I cut the
head off. I had a large painting pail, a fifty
pound paint pot that I had sandpapered out clean most
all that afternoon I had heard one. I come the
first time when I was cutting the body up. The
second time on my way home, I came right in
my pants while I was carrying the meat, thinking of

(01:04:22):
the child as she looked in life, and what my
intentions were. I got no pleasure out of choking her
to death.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
And that was the confession of Grace bud By Albert
in his own words, I did want it won me nice. Unfortunately,
I've got one more confession to read out to you.
This is the confession to the murder of Billy Gaffney. Now,
if you remember, Billy Gaffney was the young child who
was taken from the hallway of his apartment. Once again,

(01:04:54):
this is not going to be an easy easy listen.
After the trial of Albert Fish, Albert sent this letter
of confession to his attorney.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
There is a public dumping around in rakat Avenue Astoria.
All kinds of drunk have been thrown though for years.
Here is my plan. Some years ago I lived at
two two eight e eighty one, top floor front. Suppose
I confess to you that I did the Gaffney boy
in the same manner I did the bee girl. I'm
charged with the crime anyhow, and many really believe I did.

(01:05:25):
I will admit the moltman who positively identified me as
getting off his car where a small boy was correct.
I can tell you at this time I was looking
for a suitable place to do the job. Not satisfied though,
I brought him to Rykit Avenue dumps. There is a
house that stands alone not far from where I took him.
I took the boy, though, stripped him naked, and tied

(01:05:47):
his hands and feet, and gagged him with a piece
of dirty rag I picked up at the dump. Then
I burned his clothes, threw his shoes in the dump,
and then I walked back and took the trolley to
fifty ninth Street at two a m. And walked from
the home. Next day, about two pm, I took tools,
a good heavy cat on nine tails, homemade short handled,

(01:06:08):
cut one of my belts in half, slit these halfs
in six strips about eight inches long. I whipped his
berd behind until blood around from his legs. I cut
off his ears, nose, slisici his mouth from ear to ear,
gouged at his eyes. He was dead dead. I stuck
the knife in his belly and held my mouth to
his body and drank his blood. I picked up four

(01:06:30):
old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then
I cut him up. I had a grip with me.
I put his nose, ears, and a few slices of
his belly in the grip, and then I cut him
through the middle of his body, just below the belly button,
then through his legs about two inches below is behind.
I put this in my grip with a lot of paper.

(01:06:52):
I cut off the head, feet, arms, hands, and legs
below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with stones,
tied the ends, and threw them into the pools of
slimy water you will see all along the road going
to North Beach. I came home with my meat. I
had the front of his body. I liked best, his
monkey and peewe's, and a nice little fat behind to

(01:07:14):
roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew
out of his ears, nose, pieces of his face, and belly.
I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It
was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open,
cut off his monkey and pee Wee's and washed them. First,
I put strips of bacon in each cheek off his
behind and put them in the oven. Then I picked

(01:07:37):
four onions, and when the meat had roasted about a
quarter of an hour, I poured about a pint of
water over it for gravy, and then put in the onions.
At frequent intervals, I basted his behind with a wooden
spoon so the meat would be nice and juicy. In
about two hours it was nice and brown cooked through.
I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as

(01:07:59):
good as a week fat little behind. I ate every
bit of the meat in about four days. His local
monkey was so sweet as a nut, but he's peeweez
I could not chew. I threw them into toilet.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
You will be glad to know that that is the
last confession I have from Albert Fish, and I am
glad that I don't have to read another one of
them out now. As you probably noticed, during that confession,
it sounded like he was reading a recipe from a
recipe book. That's how sick this guy was. He was
confessing to this little boy's murder, and he got so
caught up in it he started describing how he cooked him,

(01:08:38):
and you could tell he was taking some kind of
delight in it. That's what Albert Fish was in a
Norse Shelley took delight in shocking people and disgusting people.
And I think you'll agree with me when I say
he succeeded. So Albert Fish was finally captured and the
trial lasted ten days. Fish knew he was destined for

(01:09:01):
the electricture. His only chance was to plead insanity, but shockingly,
he was proven to actually be sane. Many believed this
was an excuse to actually get Fish in the electric chure.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
You see, Albert.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Fish and his defense was trying to prove that he
was legally insane. If this was proven in a court
of law, he would not have gone to the electerature.
He would have been locked up somewhere and he would
have been studied for the rest of his life on
his behavior. Now, I and many others believed that he
was found sane purely sold get him into the electricture

(01:09:38):
so he could be executed for the horrible, horrible things
he did to children.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
I believe this is true.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
There is no way that man was saying he was
one hundred per insane in my opinion. I mean, maybe
he could function on some level and he could be coherent,
but if you ask me, he was batshit created now.
Once captured, Fish was X rayed and the X ray
showed that twenty nine needles had been pushed too far

(01:10:09):
into his pelvic region, most now eroding inside of him.
Albert Fish was found guilty and on January sixteenth, nineteen
thirty six, at the age of sixty five, Albert Fish
was sentenced to death. When Albert Fish received his sentence
in the courtroom and was told that he was going
to go to the electric chure, he turned to the

(01:10:30):
guard and simply said.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
It will be the supreme thrill, the only one I
haven't tried.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
And so on the sixteenth of January nineteen thirty six,
Albert Fish was electrocuted. Apparently, he helped the assistant strap
him into the chair and his last words.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Were, I don't even know why I'm here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
With Albert Fish securely fastened to the chure, the switch
was thrown and the chur lit up twice and Albert
Fish was dead. Rumour has at the needles in his
pelvic region shorted the electric mature but this.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
May just be fabricated information.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Over the years, the Albert Fish story has never gone away,
shocking all whose stumble upon it, including me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
He truly was a very sick.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Individual, as evil and demented as they come, and just
like all serial killers, he was given nicknames that tried
to express his nature. The Gray Man, the moon Maniac,
the Boogeyman, the Brooklyn Vampire, and the Werewolf of Wisteria.
Although all these nicknames do express his nature, I feel
the one name that sends more of a shiver up

(01:11:34):
my spine is simply his own name, Albert Fish. And
though we have it, we have now come to the
end of the Albert Fish episode, and I must say
that is the most difficult episode of Bizarre Podcasts I've
ever had to do. I thought the case was interesting,

(01:11:56):
but when I started getting into it, it was very,
very tough for me to stick with. But I'd made
a promise on social media that I was going to
cover it, so I went ahead with it. Anyway, I
never want to hear the name Albert Fish ever again.
If you're still with me, if you stuck around through
all of that, I want to say thank you very much.
I hope you found it interesting, and I hope it

(01:12:17):
didn't disturb you too much, and I hope you don't
have nightmares until next time, Take care of yourself, take
care of each other, and I'll see you soon. Bye bye,